Indoor commercial production of mushrooms allows for tight regulation of growing conditions such as air, temperature and relative humidity while substantially eliminating contaminants and pests. This technique typically employs trays or beds for growing the mushrooms which provides the advantages of scalability and easier harvesting. The trays or beds typically include a substrate such as compost and a casing soil that is disposed above the substrate.
The casing soil serves as a water reservoir for the mushrooms and a typical watering technique employed includes spraying the beds or trays from above. While using such a spraying technique it is normally required during certain stages of mushroom growth to stop the watering in order to limit the sprayed water from coming into contact with the developing mushrooms. Wet mushrooms may also enhance occurrence of mushroom diseases such as bacterial blotch. At this time, since watering is halted, the water content in the casing and substrate may decrease to below optimal levels.
PCT Publication No. WO 2006/090965 describes a certain type of drip irrigation tube with scar cuts that are formed on rubber dripping elements. These scars are prevented from direct exposure with the culture medium layer in order to prevent mycelia from being coated in these scar cuts which will clog the exit for water.
The ability to effectively add water to the casing layer without wetting the mushrooms may be seen to have the advantages of: adding the needed water to the mushrooms during the entire crop cycle, minimizing the incidence of mushroom diseases, enhancing mushroom quality, and reducing costs of casing and energy.